Behind the bar

As some know, I worked at Java House for the latter half of my time at Purdue. For those who don't, Java House is one of several coffee shops on campus, this one conveniently located a 45-second walk across the street from my apartment.

It started as these things tend to: as a means to an end, with a desire to get in and get out. Now, on the other side of almost two years, I can't pinpoint the exact moment I came to love the job, but I can recall numerous people and moments that must have led me to it.

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In my early days, I was myopic and eager to please. I found gratification in topping off a drink with the most symmetrical whip, the motion of stacking increasingly smaller spirals wholly satisfying; I admired (and envied) my coworker's latte art, mentally urging customers to order hot drinks so that I, too, could perfect my heart; I took pride in my ability to time a drink so that I was snapping on a lid at the exact moment the oven timer for the food went off.

I was charmed by all the usual platitudes of coffee shops: the aroma of fresh coffee; the white noise of milk steaming and chairs scraping; the steady stream of lives through the door, some in a hurry to elsewhere, others content to sit for hours. I loved being a barista. Every day, I was reminded in some way how thoroughly I enjoyed the bustle, how well the low hum of the hot coffee machines and soft shuffling of notebook paper complemented the constancy of my thoughts and grooves of my predilections, how brief and undemanding it is to lighten someone's day otherwise heavy under the weight of exams and unanswered texts and what's for dinner, how easy it is to let yours be lightened by another.

As time passed though, I was shown that, as always and without fail, it is the people that make the place. The coworker (singular) and regulars, the Monday morning delivery guys and neighboring restaurant workers. Chris, who came in every afternoon to order his small mocha, the switch from hot to iced ushering us into a new season. Ash, whose decaf hot workaholic made me want to blow up the entire building. Keya, who seemed surprised when I noticed her haircut. The couples who had just rolled out of bed together, the dogs and their pup cups, the firemen from across the street who weren't attractive but were sexy, the visiting families and their high schoolers feigning nonchalance.

Even more than my love for the coffee was my affection for these people. Without ever realizing it, they made my day: the girl who complimented my tattoos, the man who tipped me $5 because we were both from The Region, the woman who asked me about the book I was reading and proceeded to add it to her list (The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters). They provided me with the comfort of routine, the affirmation of recognition, the warmth of being in the same place at the same time as someone else.

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Turning this idea over in my mind for the past two months, I've had time to consider what I valued so much about a part-time job that paid $11/hour–how to write it in a way worth reading. I've arrived at the conclusion that it is the humanity, which I feel is nearly always worth sharing and talking about.

This past semester, Landon and I opened Monday mornings. This required of me a 5:30am wake-up (..which I made....). After we finished setting up for the day, we'd take our spots at our respective bar stools; he'd scroll endlessly on Instagram Reels or take a nap in the back while I'd exhaust the NYT games and then procrastinate school work with single-player mahjong. The world beyond the cafe's windows remained dark, our reflections stark and unstirred. The occasional unlucky 7:30er would scurry by, and we willed none of them to walk through our doors. The initial exhaustion was well worth the morning glory of rising with the sun, sometimes before it, to experience the quiet of the day before it became inhabited by the rest of the world. I have found that I hear myself more clearly, feel my emotions and the good fortune of my circumstances more acutely, fall in love a bit more easily. In these early hours, it was my own humanity I felt most.

Afternoons contained the most memorable moments though. Humanity abounded! From my see-all perch behind the bar, I witnessed so much of it in a million different ways. The girls debriefing their Friday nights; the first dates Landon and I spied on (who paid? Hinge date? who's doing all the talking? who's leaning in?); the friends sitting on the small patio just outside the cafe, their joy obvious and their laughter audible through the glass; the black cold brew guy who just walked around campus and looked jobless whom I despised for no legitimate reason; the girl who sprinted in with her dad early May, loaded his arms with as many boxes of cold brew pods as he could carry, and sprinted back to her still-running car with her dad and pods in tow, making Java House her last stop before leaving campus for the summer; the boy who sat patiently with a bouquet, the girl's sorryI'mlate as she held the flowers to her still breathless chest.

Bearing witness to you all–to your warm embraces with parents and it's-been-too-long friends; to your furrowed brows and hair swept swiftly into claw clips; to the way your expressions lightened as you looked up from orgo to a friend who had come to relieve you; to your goodbyes at the end of a productive study session, each of you smiling as you walked your separate ways back home–was the best part of the job. My early mornings felt clandestine, like mine alone to enjoy, but I valued those afternoons just as much, if not more. The cafe bathed in evening's gold and I–half-blinded by the sun beginning its descent, fatigued from a full day and ready to be home making dinner–never found it easier than in those moments to look out at you all typing, scrolling, studying, laughing, sipping, conversing and feel the fullness of your humanity.

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I owe an entire section to my dearest and most beloved coworker. There is no one else I would–could–have opened and closed with for two years. No one with whom I would rather have tackled dozens of fraudulent mobile orders, Matt's personality, and BOGO day. I enjoyed sharing early mornings and long afternoons with you. I will miss watching you take over an hour to get the Wordle, winning all (yes, all) of our debates and disagreements (you've never been more wrong), sharing Spotify Jams, playing double solitaire, giving you sage and infallible fashion advice, tanning (in your case, burning) outside on the patio last summer, splitting grilled cheeses before Java House took them off the menu, finding ways to miss staff meetings or otherwise weathering them together, watching you eat a chocolate chip cookie first thing in the morning and then having to listen to you complain about your stomach mysteriously hurting, being unamused by the Reels and references you'd show me (although I know you can't say the same), watching Severance between customers, side-eyeing each other while David talked about the muscles he pulled playing pickle ball, and setting the Java House record for fastest/earliest close, our routine out-oiling every well-oiled machine. I still cannot believe Yeat was your #1 artist last year, but we love both because and in spite of. Thank you for always making Andie's blackberry lemonades with cold foam, for making sure I had paused my time on the Washington Post crossword before continuing your thought, for mopping because you knew I hated it, for giving me your Jimmy John's pickles, and for never telling on me when I overslept which was barely ever anyway. I'm pouring honey on the goat....

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I was laying in bed the other night and I realized that all the most important people in my life, in various ways and at various stages, walked through those doors.

Téja coming in every Thursday before her 4:30pm; Cami following me into the bathrooms and back to the sinks to continue the conversation as Landon and I closed; Zion stopping in on his way home from class nearly every day spring semester; Sophia setting up camp at the bar with her large iced coffee, add SF vanilla, one splenda, splash of oat milk, and cinnamon powder (still got it); Dani taking her Monday morning calls in the far corner and keeping Landon from misery in my absence. I hold fast to these memories and routines because I get the sense I won't have anything quite like it again.

I will miss taking orders from the AJ's workers who brought us free waffle fries and wings and who once came back with a veggie burger because Landon had told them I couldn't eat the wings (I almost teared up I was so touched); listening to Ike's dating stories about ✋🏻👈🏻s and him coming in just to tell me he was seeing Zack Fox in concert; getting texts from Odin asking if I'm working and can he come visit (likely and always, respectively), listening amusedly on an afternoon in April to him and Katie debrief me on their night together. I will miss turning around and seeing my sister shuffling into the cafe, her eyes already imploring a lemonade or worse...a peach cream smoothie, her photos to our family group chat always capturing me at my hardest-working; serving my matcha crew 🍵💪🏽 (I lured you all in eventually muehehe); getting to know Keile and Anna, my freshmen regulars, with whom a friendship began when they started eavesdropping on me and Landon and was cemented when Keile asked who was on aux (obviously me). I will miss 5'11", dark, and handsome more than I'd like to admit, whose black coffees and americanos never fooled me; still another, whose Versace Pour Homme I can still smell drifting across the register...I wanted to jump across the bar. Despite initial preclusions, I will miss David, who once admitted to me, between furtive glances toward the others, that I was "one of very few" he'd want to keep tabs on after they'd graduated; who only ever scheduled me with Landon because he knew I would have hated my life otherwise; who fought the good fight but ultimately gave up trying to get me to wear my apron; and who bought me dinner after my last shift as a graduation gesture. BME (best manager ever).

Work isn't supposed to be your life. But a great deal of the happiness and gratitude in mine can be credited, in part, to my job at Java House. An inexpressible thank you to those who came in to say hello on their way to and from, to those whose drink orders I memorized, to those who texted asking when I worked, to those who sat at the bar and punctuated the monotony with their stories and company, to those who made my shift. You also make my life.

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A couple weekends ago, I went to Del Sur Bakery in Uptown. It had been on my bucket list all summer, and I needed the turon danish like I've never needed anything in my life. We stepped off the Brown Line to a queue out the door and down the side of the building. The half hour wait passed easily–as it always does when I'm with Cami. We emerged with our ube lattes and pastries (they were out of the danish, the perfect and unneeded excuse to return). Finding a shaded table two blocks down, morning stretched into afternoon, conversation as sweet and savory as our pastries, our hands, never still, freckled by sunlight cast through the branches above us.

It occurred to me then that some of my favorite memories have taken place over coffee. That I can map my life by the constellations of the various cups I've shared. My entire childhood: my dad setting the coffee maker the night before so that it was ready for my mom on her way to work in the morning. Coffee on their breaths as they kissed me on their way out the door. During COVID, every Saturday: hiking at the Dunes with my mom and sister and stopping at Dunkin' on our drive back. Blackbird with Abbey and Fluid with Conner. A shared language with Dani, the grammar structure our love of banana bread cold brews and Vienna lattes. Sydney brunches, new Chobani coffee creamers with Kacie, Starbucks which is only good for one thing: revealing the name of your months-long gym crush. Sharing a swing with Lauren, sounds of a Reds game starting behind us, cherry cordial lattes and over a decade of memories between us. Sitting for hours at a sunny window in San Diego with Jacob; our conversation meandered as easily as our lattes and mimosas poured. Eleventh House every time Miles was back on campus, Jeff's weekly photos of his hot chais and occasional Apple Payments to buy myself one (which never fail to make my day), Goddess & The Baker on the Chicago riverwalk. I'd be remiss not to mention the mornings spent with someone who felt like the guitar lick at 0:50. Watching you tear up talking about your aunt minutes after having flashed me an orange slice grin, exchanging music (something I could do for, if not forever, at least quite a while without tiring), sharing Thoreau and Baldwin (if not Coelho), learning keenly the other's inclinations and senses of humor. Arthur Schopenhauer said, "Coffee is a simple solution to many problems that philosophy cannot solve." How we tried at both!

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On Coffee.

I have found that I am never so completely myself as when I'm sitting at a corner table of a coffee shop, a book or beloved or mile of open tabs on my laptop to keep me company. It's one of my favorite settings. When I am bone-weary or heavy-hearted; when I am loading the car with luggage, giddy with the promise of somewhere new; when I am with someone whose thoughts and company I want more and more of; when I am fending off the heat of a summer afternoon or the melancholy of a dreary day; when I am smoothing out the creases of early-morning sleepiness or rallying the troops for a late-night study session.

Everything feels better in a coffee shop. In the morning, there is a reassuring vulnerability to the soft yawns and heavy eyelids. We find ourselves brought closer. In the daytime, an effortless slipping into the rhythm of routine, somehow made more glamorous by virtue of being done in a coffee shop. In the evenings, an exhale. Closed laptops and long shadows, self-satisfaction and dust motes suspended in the final reaches of a setting sun.

Buying someone their coffee is one of my favorite gestures of affection, letting the other person try a sip–lips touching the same spot on the rim–one of my favorite subtleties of intimacy. Eye contact over the brims of mugs, spills on table and shirt sleeves when someone makes the other laugh too hard, conversation until the coffee's gone cold.

My morning routine is incomplete without my iced americano. The cup, the cold brew concentrate, the splash of pistachio creamer, the clink of the spoon as it stirs, the way they come together to form a nail to hang the day on.

I cannot count how many times I've been sitting across from someone and thought to myself how glad I am, how beautiful handsome interesting clever completely themselves they are without even trying or realizing, how thoroughly I enjoy the luxury of their thoughts and honesty, how lucky they've made me. I am reminded over a cup of coffee: What are we, if not what we see in another.

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Unsurprisingly, I wrote most of this on the Vienna patio. Sunlight makes its way leisurely through the leaves overhead, providing a blissful respite from this summer's unforgiving heat. Around me, the animated conversation and cigarette smoke of neighboring tables, July glassing our skin. On the walk back, my earbuds my company, music blurring a summered street.

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A warm and sincere thank you to those with whom I've shared a cup of coffee–you are the ones always on my mind, the moments I take home with me, the reasons I am who I am. Another to the customers who came into Java House, who trusted me with their coffee and touched me profoundly in ways unnoticed and unnumbered. And my gratitude, always, to anyone who took the time to read. I hope this leaves you something slightly more than you were.